


The Bench

by NoelleAngelFyre



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Pasts/Backgrounds, F/M, References to the Warriors Arc, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, odd pairings, possibly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 14:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12367818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: Two strangers meet in the park.





	The Bench

**Author's Note:**

> I was rifling through some of my old fanfics and decided to do a throwback to childhood with this old Yu-Gi-Oh! piece. I've contemplated a follow-up piece to this for some time; I'll see what kind of reaction this one gets. Appreciate any feedback! :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is just a fun little idea and an excuse to play with an odd pairing.

The first time she sees him, it’s a hot day at the beginning of summer. She sits quietly on a park bench, admiring the lake, watching bikers and joggers move along the paved path. Some are alone, some are in pairs with shared smiles and clasped hands; others are mothers with young ones in tow. And then _he_ ’s there, running along the path: tanned skin exposed by the loose fit of a dark blue shirt and black shorts. The heat makes him sweat; tight muscles gleam under sunlight.

He happens to look her way: delicate brunette protected by the shade of a large tree with pale green sundress rustled lightly by a summer breeze. She decides that his are the most striking pair of baby blue eyes she has ever seen.

A small part of her waits for him to stop, even hopes for it (just a little), but he doesn’t. He does look back, once again, and she decides to come to the park again tomorrow.

***

He’s there the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. She doesn’t call out to him, and he doesn’t approach her. They simply stay silent and observe one another. She notices the thick mess of brown locks which somehow manages to defy gravity, no matter how hot the day. (He looks at the book in her hands and notices the pages are not lined, and the pencils she brings are always sharpened before they touch a page.)

Little things. Details insignificant on their own; together, each one starts to form a bigger picture.

She watches him for three weeks, and then she begins to sketch. Soft lines, nothing too defined at first; creating shapes and tracing out a figure from blank space. Distant and lacking tangibility, there’s nothing much to it right now.

But it’s a start of something.

***

The fourth week, she finds him sitting on the bench. He sits completely at ease, and smiles when he sees her. She feels a small flutter in her stomach. His is a smile to capture and hold close, for fear that she might never see it again. His blue eyes glimmer pleasantly in the sunlight. Tiny gold fractals dancing on water.

She sits beside him, brown eyes to blue eyes, and she smiles back at him. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He answers, reclining casually against wood and sleek metal rails. A thin line of half-dried sweat runs down his right temple, bleeding out from the hairline. “Thought it was about time I got your name.”

He starts out strong, and the flutter in her stomach beats stronger. He is confident as she is shy; unafraid as she is guarded. Men like him can be dangerous for girls like her. She shouldn’t respond.

She does anyway, her name slipping out in a whisper. “Shizuka.”

He nods, tells her it’s a beautiful name, and then tells her his name with a passing joke that hers is much better than his. He makes her laugh. She makes him smile.

(At the end of the day, she has his name, and she has the image of a smile edged with confidence and a soft center.)

***

After three days, her mother sees her at the park. More importantly, she sees him. 

Mother forbids her to go back to the park. She is reminded briefly of how dangerous strange men can be. She is reminded in more explicit detail that she doesn’t belong with “someone like him”.

(Her mother doesn’t know him.)

She sits in her room, silently. She sits for one hour. Then she slips out her bedroom window and runs to the park.

He’s waiting for her, with that smile and seat beside him on the bench. It’s become their bench, he says, and it needs to be marked. He pulls out a small knife and carves out their names: _Shizuka & Varon_. No romantic sentiment or idle flourish is added; it’s just simple and it’s theirs.

“Ours…” she whispers.

“Ours.” He nods. The knife plays idly between his fingers, blade gleaming. He holds it like he knows how to use it.

He leaves first that night, running along the path with one last smile. She leaves a few minutes later, casting one last look at the bench that is theirs and the two names etched out side-by-side in wood. And she smiles.

***

The middle of summer brings a fresh wave of heat. The shade from large trees no longer protects her from sweltering sun and fading breeze. The streaks of sweat, dribbling along Varon’s arms and down the back of his neck, are more pronounced. He has taken to stripping out of his shirt on a regular basis. She’s grown to like the salt musk of his heated body and the radiating warmth of his proximity.

(She’s grown to like it a lot.)

“You know you don’t have to wear that thing around me, right?”

Shizuka looks down at the demure white sweater tucked around her shoulders and frowns. “What’s wrong it with?”

He smirks. “Who’re you trying to impress?”

She starts to answer and becomes distracted by his movement towards the pond. “…What are you doing?”

“Cooling off.” He answers, and then he jumps into cool, clear waters with a loud splash and a shower of rippling droplets. She hurries to the pond’s edge with anxiety creasing slim brows. It deepens when he surfaces, content expression and a cocked brow that makes her bristle. “Care to join me?”

“Are you crazy?” she demands, but her attempt at frustration and annoyance fails at the look on his face. Cocky and self-assured, yet there’s something else at the center of it all: an invitation for her to throw caution to the wind.

“What’ve you got to lose, love?” he asks. He throws out the pet name as casually as he would any other word. He doesn’t ask for permission, doesn’t hesitate in offering it, and doesn’t falter in meeting her gaze.

(In that moment, she understands where they stand. He sees in her something he likes. Something worth pursuing. And she likes him too.)

The little white sweater drops to the ground, and her feet barely touch the ground before she jumps.

It doesn’t take long before she’s in his arms, bare skin slick and finally cool. His arms slide around her waist and hers curl around his shoulders. Water bleeds from her hair to her cheeks and down the gentle slope of her throat. 

(He thinks the droplets look like raindrops. And he thinks she has never looked more beautiful.)

When he kisses her, she should stop him. She should tell him that it’s too soon, too fast, and that neither of them even knows what _this_ is between them.

But she doesn’t. She kisses him too.

When she gets home, her dress is still soaking wet. Mother is angry and declares her grounded for a month. She says nothing, because her lips are still tingling from his kiss, and all she wants to more. More of him. More of whatever-it-is between them.

But she silently walks upstairs and locks herself in her room. Her mother takes her silence as obedience. Mother doesn’t know, nor can she guess, the compliance will not last. Shizuka wants too much; she needs even more. She needs the freedom and serenity of his company; the warmth and security of his touch. She wants the sweet bliss of his kiss, the way it sends heat through her body and clenches her heart in a vice, suspending it’s ability to beat until she feels his kiss again.

For two weeks, she sits quietly. She reads half her bookshelves without actually comprehending the words. She tries to knit and pricks her fingers every five minutes. The radio mocks her, playing sappy love songs every hour. She takes meals in her room and makes no attempt to socialize with her mother. Even phone calls to her brother are short and lack any emotional connection.

(Jounouchi tries, more than once, to crack a joke about her being star-struck over some guy. She manages to laugh it off, never once hinting how close he is to the actual truth.)

Finally, her bedroom window serves as an escape route once again.

She wanders the streets for hours, questioning _why_. Why is she here? Why does she continually seek him out? And above all, why does she suddenly seek freedom and independence and defiance? This is not her way. She is the quiet one: meek and innocent mouse, shy damsel for whom all are willing to rescue and retrieve at a moment’s notice. She is the daughter quick with a submissive nod and agreeable words. She is a sister always laughing with sweet smile on lips, encouraging on the worst days and delighting company on the rest.

Yet here she stands, changed. And she doesn’t regret it.

Varon finds her a short while later. They meet halfway down the street: he’s walking one way while she’s going the other. They say nothing, but begin to walk in the same direction. No one says where they’re going, but somewhere in silence the destination is understood.

As they walk along, Varon begins to talk. He tells her about an orphaned childhood which ended with fire and death and the awakening of unbridled rage. He tells her about long years spent nurturing that rage behind prison bars, and days spent locked in solitude and strait jackets with nothing but silence. He tells her about the mysterious man who showed him a world of deadly skills with a simple deck of cards, turning a game of fun into one of high-stakes wherein only one who would stand victorious.

Then he pauses…and tells her about her brother.

Shizuka says nothing, but she listens. She listens with tears of shock and confusion and horror and grief brimming in brown pools. She is terrified of what he is saying and what she is feeling.

But she says nothing, and keeps listening.

Eventually, they stop walking and he stops talking. They sit on the bench they’ve come to call theirs, and he begins to cry. She watches each tear fall, entranced by the fragile delicacy of each one. One her fingertips, she catches one, two, three. A single touch drags across the slopes of his cheek (the forms of his face are soft, in ways which sharply contradict the life he’s lived), and she watches as he grasps her hand in his: a desperate gesture to keep a simple, insignificant touch in place. The tears fall faster.

Soon, Varon is in her arms: small and childlike and broken. She holds him close: head to her breast, hands clutching at her willowy limbs, tears staining the soft blue of her blouse. He needs her as she’s never been needed before.

And for the first time, she knows what it is to be strong.

Late into the night, she returns home to a furious demand for her whereabouts. She answers in neutral, blank-faced tones. (Her arms still feel the weight of his crumpled form and the slick warmth of his tears. She feels the gratitude which radiated amidst his silent tears; the thanks that had been spoken in volumes without a word. And she remembers the strength of her heart and her arms.)

Mother demands an immediate end to this—whatever _this_ is. She stares for a long moment, her mind racing and her heart pounding, and then whispers a single word: “No.”

Her defiance is dismissed; another demand follows for her to go upstairs and to bed. She stands without compliance, and her refusal does not go unnoticed this time. Now, an ultimatum: go to bed or leave. It is an absurdly dramatic order, and there is no expectation that she will not comply. Obedience is her nature.

She stands a moment longer. And then she walks out the door.

They find each other, as they always do; this time she follows him, without question, to his home. It begins to rain when they arrive. (She thinks back to the pond; to the feel of cool water on her skin, the relish of freedom and spontaneity, and the fit of his lips to hers.)

Within the silence and secrecy of his room, she looks into his eyes. Drowns in baby-blue depths. And she no longer knows fear. Tonight, she knows freedom. And she knows desire.

“You sure?” Varon asks. He touches her face carefully, as though she’s made of glass. Everyone treats her like porcelain, fragile, a step away from breaking apart. Tonight, she wants to be broken, shattered, and demolished. Maybe then, once she isn’t the pretty damsel, a new image can be constructed.

It’s dangerous, risky; even foolish. There is so much she doesn’t know about him. There is much he doesn’t know about her. Yet a thread connects them: tenuous and a breath away from snapping…but it’s strong, strong in the connection between brown eyes and baby blue depths. Tonight, that strength is untouchable; invulnerable to the world and all its obstacles.

“Yes.” Shizuka whispers. He seals her answer with a kiss.

It is frightening for her to be so sure of herself when she is stripped, exposed, and physically vulnerable. It is her way to be afraid, hesitant, and never take the plunge when no certainty exists of just where she will land.

But with Varon, she doubts there is ever a place to land; no end to a rapid, head-long descent which leaves her dizzy, disoriented, and breathless. She falls, and then she flies. Soars high above doubt and fear and wounds of the past.

For a long glorious moment, she flies. And then she crashed back down to the cotton embrace of his sheets, the heat of his body and the musk of his scent, all surrounding her in a sweet, warm cocoon of pleasure while she rests: limp and intoxicated by his closeness.

They lay in silence for a long time. Outside, the rain falls, soft and light, against the windows and roof. She is curled against him, head beneath his chin. His arms hold her close; one hand drags through brown strands smeared across damp skin. His heartbeat murmurs against her ear: a song in and of itself. And it is beautiful.

She is gone when he awakens, but he finds her later. In the park, beneath the largest tree, on the bench that is theirs, he finds her. He joins her, and she shows him the picture that has been in the making since the first moment brown eyes met baby blues. In its original conception, only his image was present. Now, it is finished, and her image stands with him.


End file.
